As a service to its customers, most banking establishments have historically offered drive-up services whereby a customer can conduct financial transactions from a car or van at a teller drive-up window generally located on an accessible external wall of the bank building. With the advent and success of automatic teller machines (ATMs), it has become more desirable to utilize wall space previously dedicated to drive-up teller windows for ATM usage. One reason for this is that drive-up ATM terminals are more profitable and more convenient in that they can provide generally unattended, around the clock service to bank customers. While the very nature of an ATM permits positioning of such machines in locations remote from the bank proper, for reasons of security, as well as operator convenience, ATMs are normally placed through a wall of an existing building wherein the face of the ATM is exterior to the building and accessible to a customer and where the machine itself and its internal cash reserves are located within the building where it is protected from criminal tampering and easily accessible by authorized personnel for service and/or resupply of cash.
As a result of the foregoing, banking institutions prefer to dedicate accessible external wall space for drive-up lanes for ATM usage. Nevertheless, such institutions still desire to accommodate drive-up customers who need to conduct financial transactions which cannot be performed by ATMs.
With the assignment of external wall space to ATM traffic, the interest in transfer systems which would communicate a bank teller with a remote location has increased. One type of transfer system gaining increased acceptance for remote banking applications is pneumatic transfer systems in which a carrier for holding articles is transferred through a tube from the teller to a customer remote therefrom.
Pneumatic tube banking systems in present day use are generally of two types, i.e. (1) captive carrier systems and (2) non-captive carrier systems. Non-captive carrier systems are ones in which the carrier may be removed from the system to insert or remove articles. Important in any pneumatic tube system for use in banking operations is that it be user friendly and at the same time simple to use. It is likewise desirable to provide a system having a large content capacity, which at the same time requires little ground space, i.e. has a small profile. In this respect, it is important that the system have sufficient capacity for commercial or business transactions typically involving deposits of large quantities of coins, bills, checks and the like. Due to this latter requirement, captive systems are generally required for any system intended to replace a drive-up teller window, because larger loads necessitate larger carriers and as the carrier size increases, it's weight and size makes use of a removable carrier impractical for general customer usage.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,750 to Podoll, et al. discloses an overhead pneumatic tube system designed for banking operations. The foregoing patent discloses a system utilizing a rectangular tube and carrier for transporting relatively large loads. While the disclosed system has generally proven successful in commercial operation, use of a rectangular tube makes fabrication and installation of such a system more difficult as compared to cylindrical systems. In this respect, it is generally believed that cylindrical tubes are more efficient, in that it is easier to maintain a uniform passage through a cylindrical tube as compared to a rectangular tube which tends to "neck down" at the mid section of its sides when under a vacuum. Such tendency together with the difficulty of providing a seal around a rectangular carrier as compared to a cylindrical carrier makes the fabrication and installation of a rectangular tube more difficult and less flexible in its application.
With respect to large, captive cylindrical carriers, as indicated in the foregoing patent, it was heretofore believed that a cylindrical carrier was not suitable or efficient for transport of large, heavy loads, it being believed that access to the interior of a cylindrical carrier was difficult and impractical in large captive systems.
The present invention overcomes the perceived difficulties and deficiencies of large, carrier systems and provides a pneumatic tube system which employs a large, carrier capable of transporting relatively large loads, which system includes compact, reliable and easy to use.